Still Running (weakly). Issue 171

PAST – inspiration – “For years I’ve been getting up at 4:45 am and running hard for an hour every day.  I’ve always loved challenging myself.”  So said Tom Byers, once a top miler, on how he was preparing to try and run a sub-4-minute mile at 40 years old.

We all have quotes that inspire us.  Byers’s dedication to his early starts – the only way he could fit in his training as the father of two sons and president of an insurance company – is one that has stayed with me, though he never did break 4 at 40.  Here are two more of the best……..

“60-minute run in the morning.  In the afternoon, a track monster.  Warmed up for 6 miles and warmed down for 6 miles, but in the middle of it I did 10 miles on the track.  Basically, I did 2km with a quarter jog, then 1km with a quarter jog, and repeated that cycle 5 times.  On my warm-down, the last 5 miles were over hills that are tougher than the Newton Hills in Boston.  I ran the intervals faster than race pace, and the mileage for the entire workout (approximately 22 miles) has to average out at marathon race pace.  The workout gave me a lot of confidence that I’d do well in Boston.”

This is Benji Durden 11 days before the 1983 Boston Marathon, where he placed third in a PB of 2:09:58.

What I also like about his approach is that he’d do a workout like the one detailed above, but then he’d be happy to just jog for 2 or 3 days, before hitting some more speedwork or hills or a long run.

Then there’s fulltime schoolteacher and part-time miler Matt Elliott, who surprised everybody by coming fourth in the 2013 US Championships.  He shared his Monday schedule………

6am Wake up, drink a Spark energy drink, eat a PowerBar.

6:30 Run 10 miles.

7:35 Shower, dress, pack oatmeal, orange juice, a banana, and a protein shake.

8:10 School starts…………

4:15 Get home, eat toast and honey.

5:00 Take a 30-minute nap.

5:30 Run three miles on grass at Winthrop University, do six 80-metre hill sprints.

6:30 Do a total body weightlifting session at the gym.

8:00 Get home, put brown rice and chicken on the stove, stretch and roll out.

9:00 Eat dinner.

9:30 Take ice bath and/or shower.

10:00 Lights out.   

PRESENT – perspiration – When Alison dos Santos was ten months old, a pan of boiling hot cooking oil spilled on him at his grandparents’ house.  He spent four months in hospital and retains third-degree burns to his forehead, scalp, face, chest and left arm.

Because of his very visible scars, he was very shy growing up, until he became interested in sports.

He found his niche in the 400 metres hurdles, and on 27th August this year in the Zurich Diamond League meeting, he smashed Karsten Warholm’s ‘unbreakable’ world record, running 45.80 against the Norwegian’s 45.94.

The tall Brazilian used to hide his scars under a cap when he was younger, but he now embraces them as part of his story as a world-class athlete.

He was born on 3rd June 2000, exactly two weeks before Masai Russell of the USA.  She also set a new hurdles world record in Zurich, running 12.09 for the 100 metres version, breaking Nigerian Toni Amusan’s 12.12 from 2022!

But dos Santos’s story also reminds me of Glenn Cunningham and Ana Quirot.

“We recommend amputating his legs,” said the doctors, after eight-year-old Cunningham had been badly burned in an explosion, which killed his brother Floyd.  His parents wouldn’t allow it.  Told he might never even walk normally again, he nevertheless went on to become America’s premier miler of the 1930s, winning 1500 metres silver at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

And Ana Quirot of Cuba won 800 bronze at the 1992 Olympics, but was badly burned when a kerosene stove exploded in her flat in early 1993 when she was seven months pregnant, causing near-fatal third-degree burns over 38% of her body.  Just nine months after the accident, she returned to international competition and won a silver medal at the 1993 Central American and Caribbean Games. 

She went on to win 1995 World gold, 1996 Olympic silver and 1997 World gold!

FUTURE – suggestion – If you want to run badly enough, you’ll find a way.

Ron Hill of course is famous for running every day for over 52 years, but there have been others who have striven in a similar manner to fit in the training that they thought was necessary.

Now I am not in a million years comparing myself to the challenges faced by Cunningham, Quirot and dos Santos, but I had a streak of 100-mile weeks back in the mid-1980s. 

A new week dawned.  The trouble was I was injured.  I couldn’t run at all on the Monday and Tuesday, but my Achilles felt good enough on the Wednesday morning to go out.

I knew the only way I could do the requisite 100 miles around my job was two 10-mile runs on each of the remaining five days.

That was OK until we had to go up to Birmingham to an exhibition on the Friday.  It was a very early start.  It was an even earlier one that allowed me to run my 10 before showering and catching the 6:30 train to the Midlands.

Even then, we were very late back and I think that it was nearly midnight when I started my second 10-miler of the day!

After that, the weekend was a piece of cake!

Still, it was all worth it to see another 100-mile week beaming at me from my training diary.

The things we do when we’re young, fit…………… and stupid!